The Grimm Legacy
by YuGiOhNerd5000
Summary: My second story! Summary inside. Please read it before you judge it! This story is based/rewritten from the book The Grimm Legacy. SoulxMaka and BlackstarxTsubaki
1. I receive a gift and summons

**Shen**: Hello everyone!

**Andreina**: Shouldn't you be working on The Mark Of Millennia?

**Shen**: Yeah, but, I need more reviews for it and I have writers block on it.

**Yugi**: So, what's this story about?

**Shen**: Yugi! What are you doing here? This even isn't a YuGiOh story!

**Yugi**: I know, I'm just bored.

**Andreina**: Well, anyway, Shen (YuGiOhNerd5000) does not own Soul Eater or the book this story is based on, The Grimm Legacy.

**Summary**: Maka has just started working as a page at the Death-City Circulating Material Repostiory, a lending library of objects-contemporary and historical, common and obscure. And secret, too-for in the repository's basement lies the Grimm Collection, a room of magical items straight from the Grimm Brothers fairy tales. But the magic mirrros and seven-league boots and other items are starting to disappear. And before she knows it, Maka and her fellow pages- Handsome Blackstar, perfect Tsubaki, and brooding Soul- are suddenly caught up in an exciting but dangerous adventure!

**NOTE:** The characters in this will probably be OOC. But, it's for the story. So deal with it!

_**Chapter 1:**_

_**I receive a gift and a summons**_

* * *

Snow fell hard: big, sticky flakes that got under my coat collar where the top button was missing. The weather had delayed my subway, and I was worried I would be late for class,

In front of school, a homeless woman was struggling with a shopping cart. A passing taxi sent out a freezing wave of gray slush, causing the woman and the cart to topple over into the gutter.

I had to help. Her hands were icy claws as I pulled her to her feet. She felt much light than she looked in her bulky rags. "Thank you." She said, shaking snow off the blanket that had covered her shoulders. Underneath she wore a T-shirt stuffed with newspaper. And on her feet, to my horror, I saw sandals.

The late bell was about to sound, but I couldn't abandon someone wearing sandals in the middle of a snowstorm- not when I had a spare pair of shoes with me. I helped her set the cart back on its wheels, then took my gym sneakers out of my bag. "Here," I said. "Can you use these?" They probably wouldn't fit- I have embarrassingly large feet. But at least they wouldn't be better than sandals.

The woman took them and turned them over, studying the soles. She held the right sneaker close to her face and peered inside, seeming to sniff at it. The left she held to her ear like a telephone.

At last she looked at me. Her eyes were surprisingly bright, a pale, luminous gray like storm clouds.

"Thanks." She said.

"You want my socks too? Probably not, they need to be washed." As soon as I'd said it, I realized it was a pretty insensitive thing to say- people with nowhere to live doesn't have much opportunity to do laundry. Probably they're used to dirty socks.

"Thanks." said the woman again, starting to smell the socks but evidently thinking better of it. "Wait," she said as I turned toward the school. She rummaged through the bags in the cart as the snow continued to tumble down and melt my collar. I was getting impatient, but I waited till the women found what she was looking for and held it out to me. "Keep it safe."

"Um, thanks."

It was a number 2 pencil- the ordinary yellow kind, with a pink eraser, like you use for the SATs. I put it in my book bag, pulled my scarf tighter, and turned toward the school door.

"Hurry, Maka, you're late," said a grim voice. My social studies teacher, Mr. - or, Dr. as he prefers it- Stein, was holding the door open for me. He was my favorite teacher, despite his crazy ways of teaching us about history by using odd ways of science. Which makes me wonder why he wasn't a science teacher in the first place. Did I mention he has a black kind of screw thing on the side of his head? Well, he does. Nobody really questions it, but I can't help but wonder.

The homeless woman gave him a little wave, and Dr. Stein nodded back as the door swung shut behind us. I thanked him and hurried to my locker, hearing the late bell chime.

The day went downhill from there. Ms. Sandoz made me play volleyball barefoot when she saw I didn't have my sneakers, and charming Medusa Cane and Jennifer Farmer spent the period play Accidentally Stomp on the New Girl's Toes. Then in social studies Dr. Stein announced a research paper due right after New Year's, effectively eliminating the vacation.

"Chose wisely, Maka," he said as he handed me the list of possible topics.

* * *

My stepsister Blair called me that evening to ask me to mail her her black lace top. She'd handed it down to me when she left for college, but with Blair, gifts rarely stayed given for long.

"What are you up to?" she asked.

"Working on ideas for my social studies research paper. European history, with Dr. Stein."

"I remember Stein-what a weirdo! Does he still wear that stitched up lab coat? And give out demerits if he catches you looking at the clock?"

"Yup." I quoted him: " 'Time will pass- but will you?' "

Blair laughed. "What are you writing about?"

"The Brothers Grimm."

"The fairy-tale guys? For Stein? Are you crazy?"

"It was on his list of suggested topics."

"Don't be a little goose. I bet he just put it on there as a test, to see who would be dumb enough to think fairy tales are history. Hey, I probably still have my term paper from that class. You can use it if you like. I'll trade it for- hm- your good headphones."

"No, thanks." I said.

"You sure? It's about the Paris Commune."

"That's cheating. Anyway, Dr Stein would notice."

"Suit yourself. Send me that lace top tomorrow, okay? I need it be Sunday." She hung up.

I chewed at the end of my pencil-the one the homeless woman had given me-and stared at the topic I'd circled, wondering whether to follow Blair's advice about switching topics. Dr. Stein took history very seriously, and fairy tales don't sound that serious. But if he didn't want us writing about the Brothers Grimm, why put them on the topics list?

Fairy tales were a big part of my childhood. I used to sit in my mother's lap while she read them out loud and pretend I could read along-until, after a while, I found I actually could. Later, in the hospital when Mom was too sick to hold a book, it was my turn to read our favorites out loud.

The stories all had happy endings. But they didn't keep Mom from dying.

If she were alive now, I thought, she would definitely approve of my learning more about the men who wrote them. I decided to stick to my choice.

Strange as it sounds, once I decided I found myself actually looking forward to the term paper-it would give me something interesting to do. Vacation was going to be lonely since my best friend, Liz (and her sister, Patty), had moved to California. I hadn't made any new friends in the four months I'd been at my new school, D.W.M.A., and the girls I used to hand out with were too busy with ballet to pay much attention to me anymore.

I missed my ballet classes, but Dad said we couldn't afford them now that he had to pay for my stepsisters' college tuition, and I was never going to a professional dancer anyway-I wasn't obsessed enough, and my feet were too big.

* * *

Fairy tales might not be history, but as I learned in the hours I spent in the library over Christmas break, Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm were historians. They didn't invent their fairy tales-they collected them, writing down the folk tales and stories they heard from friends and servants, aristocrats and innkeepers' daughters.

Their first collection of stories was meant for grown-ups and I could see why-they're way too bloody and creepy for children. Even the heroes go around boiling people in oil and feeding them red-hot coals. Imagine Disney making a musical version of "The Girl Without Hands," a story about a girl whose widowed father chops off her hands when she refuses to marry him!

I thought I'd done a pretty good job when I finished the paper, but I still felt nervous when I handed it in. Dr. Stein is a tough grader.

* * *

A few days after we returned from vacation, Dr. Stein stopped me in the hall, pointing a long forefinger at the end of an outstretched arm. He always seemed to have twice as many elbows and knuckles as other people. "Maka! Come see me at lunch," he said. "My office."

Was I in trouble? Had my paper creeped him out? Was Blair right-had I failed some kind of test?

The door to the social studies department office was open, so I knocked on the door frame. Dr. Stein waved me in. "Sit down," he said.

I perched on the edge of a chair.

He handed me a paper, folded in half along the vertical axis. Comments in his signature brown ink twined across the back. I took a breath and willed myself to look at the grade.

"Nice work, Maka," he said. Was that a smile on his face? Almost.

I opened the paper. He had given me an A. I leaned back, my heart pounding with relief. "Thank you."

"What made you chose this topic?"

"I don't know-I always loved fairy tales. They seemed so-so realistic."

"Realistic? That's quite an unusual view," said Dr. Stein with a hint of a smile.

"You're right." I felt dumb. "What I mean is, all the terrible things that happen in fairy tales seem real. Or not real, but genuine. Life is unfair, and the bad guys keep winning and good people die. But I like how that's not always the end of it. Like when the mother dies and turns into a tree and keeps helping he daughter, or when the boy who everybody thinks is an idiot figures out how to outwit the giant. Evil is real, but so is good. They always say fairy tales are simplistic, black and white, but I don't think so. I think they're _complicated_. That's what I love about them."

"I see." Dr. Stein consulted his planner. "You're new this year, aren't you?"

I nodded. "I used to go to Chase, but both my stepsisters are in college now, so the tuition. . ." I stopped, a little embarrassed to be discussing my family finances.

"Ah, so you have stepsisters," Dr. Stein said. "I hope they aren't the evil Grimm kind?"

"A little," I replied. Mizune's a lot older, and Blair-Blair hated sharing her room with me after my father and I moved in. Blair liked having someone to boss around the way Mizune bossed her. Blair was always taking my things and never letting me use hers. But I couldn't say any of that-it seemed too disloyal. "My stepsister Blair was in your class- Blair Vane," I said.

"Say no more," said Dr. Stein. He gave me the ghost of a smile, as if we were sharing a joke. Then he asked, "Did you ever replace your sneakers?"

"My sneakers?"

"I recall seeing you give away your sneakers-very generous of you."

"I haven't had a chance," I told him. I didn't want to get into our embarrassing financial situation again.

"I see." He cleared his throat. "Well, Maka, this is all vey satisfactory. Would you like a job?"

"A job? What kind of job?"

"An after-school job. A friend of mine at the Death-City Circulating Material Repository tells me they have an opening. It's a great place. I worked there myself when I was your age."

I tried to imagine him at my age, but the lab coat got in the way. "Is that like a library?"

" 'Like a library.' Exactly. Well put."

"Yeah-yes, please. I'd like that," I said. A job meant money for things like new gym shoes, and it wasn't like I had a crammed social schedule.

Everybody at the D.W.M.A. had known each other for aeons. It was already taking them a long time to warm up to me, the new girl. Then I made the mistake of sticking up for Alex Skyma when some of the cool girls were making up songs about her weight and her braces. Worst of all, Ms. Stanhope, the assistant principal, overheard me and used me as an example of "compassionate leadership" in her next "class chat." After that, nobody wanted to have anything to do with me except Alex herself. But I didn't actually like her.

Who knows? Maybe if I took the library job, I would make friends there.

Plucking his fountain pen from his breast pocket, Dr. Stein wrote a number on a slip of paper, folded it vertically, and handed it to me pinched between his index and middle fingers. "Call and ask for Dr. Rust," he said.

"Thank you, Dr. Stein." The bell rang, and I hurried to my next class.

* * *

That afternoon when I was home, I went straight to my room, avoiding the living room so Chinatsu(1), my stepmother, wouldn't rope me into doing errands or force me to listen to her bragging about my stepsisters.

I wished my father were home so I could tell him about my new job. Not that he listened to me much these days.

Instead, I told Francie, my doll. I know it sounds babyish, but she was my mom's doll, and sometimes talking to her makes me feel a tiny bit like I'm talking to Mom.

Franice smiled at me encouragingly. Of course, she always smiles since her smile is sewn on-but I still took it as a good sign.

Francie is the only one of Mom's doll collection that Chinatsu let me keep after Blair chipped Lieselotte's nose. Liesealotte was the crown of Mom's collection. She's a bisque doll, made in Germany over one hundred and fifty years ago and worth a lot of money.

"I'll just put these away until you're old enough to take care of them properly," Chinatsu had said when she packed the dolls away.

I knew back then it wasn't worth protesting. Chinatsu always sided with her own daughters. At first I used to complain to my father, but he would just say, "I need you to get along with your stepsisters. I know you can. You're my little peacemaker. You have a big, generous heart, just like your mother." So I told Chinatsu I didn't break Lieselotte, but I didn't say who did.

"If you're not old enough to take responsibility, you're certainly not old enough to play with dolls this valuable," said Chinatsu. "Now, don't start crying-here, you can keep this one; it's not worth anything. Even _you_ can't do much damage to a rag doll. You'll thank me when you're older." She handed me Franice and shut the lid on Lieselotte's look of faint, aristocratic surprise.

* * *

"Time to make a phone call, Franice?" I asked.

She smiled a yes.

I called the number on the slip of paper.

"Lee Rust," said the person who answered.

"Hi, Dr. Rust? I-this is Maka Albarn, and my social studies teacher, Dr. Stein, said to call you about a job?"

"Ah, yes, Maka. Franken said you would be calling. I'm glad to hear from you."

Franken? So Dr. Stein had a first name? Wait, Franken. Stein. Oh, my gosh! It sounds like Frankenstein! Cool. I snapped back into reality when Dr. Rust spoke again.

"Can you come in for an interview next Thursday after school?"

He already had a date scheduled? Wow, he plans fast, I thought. Then I realized I hadn't answered his question yet. "Um, yeah. Where do I go?" I asked.

Dr. Rust gave me an address not far from my school, east of Central Park. "Ask for me at the front desk; they'll send you up."

* * *

The discreet brass plague beside the door said _Death-City Circulating Material Repository._ From the outside, it looked like a standard (Manhattan) brownstone, the last in a long row. Next door was a big old mansion, the kind that are now mostly consulates or museums. That place would have made an impressive library, I thought as I walked up the steps to the repository and pulled open the heavy doors. It was just the sort of place I used to go to with my father, before he meet Chinatsu. We used to spend every rainy weekend in museums and libraries. Especially the less famous ones, like the Museum of Death City and the Death-City Historical Society, with their odd collections of things- old china and tinsmiths' tools and models of what the city looked like before the Revolution. We would play a game: pick out which painting (or clock, or chair, or photograph, or whatever) would have been Mom's favorite.

I hadn't been to a museum with my dad in years, but when I opened the doors, the slightly dusty smell brought it all flooding back. I felt as if I'd stepped back through time into a place that was once my home.

Through some trick of geometry, the entrance opened out into a large rectangular room apparently wider than the building that held it. At the far end was a massive desk, elaborately carved in dark wood.

A guy my age was sitting behind it.

But not just any guy-Blackstar, the most skilled martial arts fighter our school had ever seen. He was in Dr. Stein's other social studies section, and we had health ed together. Most of the girls at D.W.M.A. had crushes on him. I would too, if I didn't think it would be presumptuous. . .Well, to be honest, I did anyway. I was pretty sure he had no idea who I was.

"Hi, I'm here to see Dr. Rust?" I said.

"All right. Who should I say is here?"

"Maka Albarn."

Blackstar picked up the receiver of an old-fashioned telephone, the kind with a dial. "Maka Albarn here to see you, Doc. . . .Sure. . . .No, till six today. . . .All right." He pointed an arm toward a fancy brass elevator door. "Fifth floor, take a left, through the arch. You'll see it."

When I stepped out of the elevator, corridors branched away in three directions. I couldn't imagine how they fit it all in one narrow brownstone. I went down three steps through an arch to a small, book-lined room.

Dr. Rust was slight and wiry, with thick, shaggy hair just on the brown side of red and a billion freckles.

"Maka. I'm glad to meet you." We shook hands. "Please, have a seat. How is Franken?"

Strict but fair. Stern-looking, but with an underlying twinkle in his eyes. Oddly dressed. "Fine," I said.

"Still keeping that great beast in that tiny apartment, is he?"

"I guess? I've never been to his apartment."

"Well. Let's see, you're in Franken's European history class, yes?"

"That's right."

"Good, good. Franken's never sent us a bad page. He says you're hardworking and warmhearted, with an independent mind-which is high praise from Franken, believe me. So this is really a formality, but just to be thorough, do you do the dishes at home?"

What kind of question was that? "Yes, most of the time." One more bad thing about my stepsisters going away to college-I was the only kid left to do the chores.

"About how often?"

"Most days. Five or six times a week, probably."

"And how many have you broken this year?"

"Dishes?"

"Yes, dishes, glasses, that sort of thing."

"None. Why?"

"Oh, we can never be too careful. When was the last time you lost your keys?"

"I never lose my keys."

"Excellent. All right, sort these please." Dr. Rust handed me a box of buttons.

"Sort them? Sort them how?"

"Well, that's up to you, isn't it?"

This had to be the strangest interview I'd ever heard of. Was I going to lose the job because Dr. Rust didn't like the way I sorted buttons.

I poured them out on the desk and turned them all faceup. There were large wooden disks and tiny pearls, shiny square buttons made of red or blue or yellow plastic, sparkly star-shaped ones with rhinestones that looked as if they would shred their buttonholes, little knots of rope, a set of silver buttons each engraved with a different flower, tiny rabbits carved form coral, plain transparent plastic buttons for inside waistbands, big glass things like mini doorknobs, a heavy gold button studded with what looked like real diamonds.

I grouped them by material: metal; wood and other plant products; bone, shell, and other animal parts; stones; plastic and other man-made materials, including glass. Then I divided each category into subgroups, also by material. Within the subgroups, I ranked them by weight.

"I see. Where would you put these?" Dr. Rust handed me a metal button, the kind with a loop on the back rather than holes. The front part had a piece of woven cloth of some sort, set behind glass.

I hesitated. Should it go in metals, in man-made material for the glass, or in plants for the cloth? Maybe the cloth was wool, though, which would put it in animal parts. "Am I allowed to ask a question?" I asked.

"Of course. Always ask questions. As the Akan proverb says, 'The one who ask questions does not lose his way'."

"Where Akan?"

"The Akan people are from Africa. They have a remarkably rich proverb tradition. Perhaps because they believe in asking questions.

"Oh. Okay-what's the button made of?"

"Excellent question. Gold, rock crystal, and human hair."

Not man-made materials, then; maybe stone. Other than that, the answer didn't help me much. By weight, the button was mostly gold, so maybe it should go in with the metals? But I had put the diamond-looking one in stone, not metal. I decided to classify the new button by its weirdest component and put it tn the animal pile.

"Interesting." Said Dr. Rust. "Sort them again."

I scrambled them and resorted, making an elaborate grid of size and color. It started with red at the top and ran through the rainbow down to violet at the bottom, with extra rows for black and white. From left to right, it started with tiny collar buttons and finished with vast badges.

"Where would you put this?" Dr. Rust handed me a zipper.

A zipper! "Why didn't you give me this last time?" I said in dismay. "I could have put it with the metals."

Was it my imagination, or had Dr. Rust's freckles moved? Hadn't the large one over the left eye been over the right eye earlier?

I scrambled the buttons again and started over. This time I sorted them by shape. I put the zipper with the toggles and a rectangular button carved with zigzags. I didn't like that solution, but it was better than nothing.

Dr. Rust raised an eyebrow (no large freckle anywhere near now) and asked, "Which do you think is the most valuable?"

I considered the diamond one but picked an enameled peacock with blue gems in its tail. Dr. Rust seemed pleased.

"The oldest?"

I had no idea. I picked one of the silver ones.

"The most beautiful?"

I was getting a little impatient with all this. I picked one of the plastic ones, in a lovely shade of green. Dr. Rust didn't seem quite to believe me. "The most powerful?"

"How can a button be powerful?"

"Oh, I think you'll find over time that every objects here has its own unique qualities. You'll find that the materials in our collections speak to you."

Did that mean I'd gotten the job?

Still, some of the buttons did seem to draw me more than others. I chose a black glass button with a disturbing geometry. Dr. Rust picked it up and examined it closely for a long time while I watched the freckles, trying to catch them moving. Wasn't that butterfly shape of freckles on the left side just a minute ago?

"Well, Maka, this has been most illuminating, but we both have a lot of work waiting," said Dr. Rust at last, as if _I_ had been the one staring endlessly at a button. "Can you start next week? Here, I think you'd better have this."

Someone opened the door just as Dr. Rust handed me one last button. It matched the buttons on my coat-it might have been my missing top button.

"And here's Blackstar, right on time."

_**End Chapter 1**_

* * *

**Shen**: Well? Like it? Hate it?

**Andreina**: Twas good.

**Shen**: Since when did _you_ know how to talk like that?

**Andreina:** Hey! I talk how ever I want!

**Soul**: How come I haven't appeared yet?

**Shen**: Clam down, Soul. You'll appear later.

**Soul**: Chapter 2?

**Shen**: More like chapter 3.

**Soul**: WHAT!

**Andreina**: Maka! Make Soul clam down!

**Maka**: Okay. (Maka chops Soul with a book)

**Yugi: **So that't what a Maka Chop is.

**Shen**: Yep. Okay, if you people like this story and will want me to continue it, I need 2-3 reviews, okay?

**1.) Chinatsu – 'A Thousand Summers'**

**Yugi+Maka**: RxR!


	2. The DeathCity Circulating Material Repo

**Shen**: I know I said that I would upload this if I got 2 or 3 reviews, but I was bored out of my mind!

**Andreina:** _*Softly singing lyrics to music playing in headphones*_ When everyday feels like, the other...

**Tsubaki:** *_Leans toward Shen and_ _whispers_ * Isn't that a Big Time Rush song?

**Maka:** Yep.

**Shen:** I didn't think she listened to BTR. Huh, oh well. I don't own Soul Eater or The Grimm Legacy.

**Summary**: Maka has just started working as a page at the Death-City Circulating Material Repostiory, a lending library of objects-contemporary and historical, common and obscure. And secret, too-for in the repository's basement lies the Grimm Collection, a room of magical items straight from the Grimm Brothers fairy tales. But the magic mirrros and seven-league boots and other items are starting to disappear. And before she knows it, Maka and her fellow pages- Handsome Blackstar, perfect Tsubaki, and brooding Soul- are suddenly caught up in an exciting but dangerous adventure!

**NOTE:** The characters in this will probably be OOC. But, it's for the story. So deal with it!

**Yugi:** See You at the bottom! *_Notices Shen's, Maka's, and Tsubakis' shocked expressions._* What? I can be here.

_**By the way, that song that Andreina is listening too is This Is Our Someday by Big Time Rush.**_

_**Chapter 2**_

_**The Death-City Circulating Material Repository**_

* * *

Blackstar stood in the doorway.

"You two know each other, right?" said Dr. Rust.

"Yeah, we met downstairs," said Blackstar.

"Actually, we're in health ed together," I said. "With Ms. Reider."

Blackstar had the grace to look embarrassed

"Good," said Dr. Rust. "Maka up to Stack 9 and show her the ropes."

"But the ropes are on Stack 2."

"I meant metaphorically."

"And send Marie a pneum," continued Dr. Rust. "She'll want to do her orientation thing and work out the schedules. Glad to have you with us, Maka. We've been shorthanded lately—we can really use the help. If you have any questions, you know where to find me."

I had a billion questions, in fact, but I followed Blackstar down the hallway and through a door marked Staff Only.

"What's a stack?" I asked.

"A floor where the holdings are stored."

"And what's a pneum?"

"Pneumatic tube carrier," said Blackstar.

"Okay, what's a pneumatic tube carrier, then?"

"You'll see. Watch your head here."

We went through a low door and up a staircase, flight after flight after flight. The brownstone couldn't possibly have so many floors—we must have gone way past the roof, into some sort of penthouse addition. I was panting hard, but Blackstar looked as cool as ever, like the black king in my chess set.

At last he opened a door marked Stack 9. We stepped out into the middle of a long room with rows of cabinets stretching away on both sides. Near the door was a pair of desks facing a trio of elevators: a tiny one the size of a microwave, another the size of a dishwasher, and a third the size of a small refrigerator. Beyond them thick pipes snaked off in several directions. These were painted white, black, and red, and each had a small oblong door at elbow height. One of the pipes ended like a bathtub faucet over a wire basket.

"The staging area is basically headquarters on each floor," said Blackstar. "You can hang up your coat over there." He took a white slip of paper from a tray of different-colored slips, wrote something on it, and folded it in half.

As I stood looking around, one of the pipes began to cough and thump, as if a tiny elephant were panicking inside. Something hurtled out of the open end of the pipe and landed with a thud in the wire basket beneath. Marc held it up to show me: a transparent plastic tube like a skinny soda can, with thick felt padding on both ends.

"See? A pneum." The pneum had a sliding panel in its side. Blackstar slid it open, reached into the pneum, extracted a piece of paper, and replaced it with the note he'd written. He pulled open a door in one of the pipes. I heard a soft roaring, like a wind in a canyon. He slipped in the pneum and let the door clap shut.

The pipe banged as the pneum shot through it.

"Where did it go?" I asked.

"Upstairs to the pneum routing station."

"How does it work?"

"The pipes are full of pressurized air. It's like a tiny hurricane inside the pipe. The air pushes the pneums through the pipes, all around the building."

"So you could send that pneum anywhere?"

"It goes where the pipe takes it. You have to pick a pipe that's going where you want to send the pneum. I better run that call slip," he said. "Wait here. If Ms. Marie shows up, tell her I'll be right back." He headed off down a row of file cabinets.

I hung up my coat, wandered over to a cabinet stenciled with letters and numbers, and peeked in. Inside I saw shelves of tea-cups. The next cabinet had shelves of coffee mugs. From time to time I heard a pneum gallop through the pipes in the ceiling.

Soon Blackstar came back with a pair of packages each the size of a shoe box. He put the first one in the smallest elevator, shut the door, and pressed a button.

"Was that a book?" I asked.

"What? No, it's a chocolate pot. Sorry, I should have showed you. The patron requested a hot-chocolate set. Here's the cream and sugar." He opened the second box and showed me a fancy, swirly cream pitcher and sugar bowl packed in fluffy stuff, like cotton. He delicately tucked the fluff back around the set.

"Can I ask you a question?" I asked.

"Uh-huh. Like Doc says, 'The one who asks questions does not lose his way,'" he answered in a credible imitation of Dr. Rust's high-low voice.

"Okay, so this job. What am I supposed to be doing? Am I like a dishwasher?"

"A dishwasher!" He hooted with laughter. "Why would you be a dishwasher?"

I bristled. Being laughed at was bad enough—being laughed at by Blackstar felt doubly bad. Besides, it didn't seem like such an unreasonable question to me. "Well, Dr. Rust asked me how often I do the dishes and if I break a lot of china. And there's all this china around. What is the job, if I'm not washing dishes?"

"You're a page."

That made less sense than a dishwasher. Was he making fun of me? "You mean a medieval page, like an entry-level knight? Are there swords and dragons hidden away in some of these cabinets?"

He hooted again, but I didn't feel as bad. At least this time you could argue he was laughing at my joke. "A library page," he said. "When a call ship comes, you go get the item the patron requested. Did you ever use the reference library on Forty-second Street? You know how they keep the books locked up and bring them to you when you request them? Did you ever wonder who gets the books? That's the pages."

"Okay, so if this is a library, where are all the books?"

"Books? There's some on Stack 6. Most of them are in the Document Room or the Reference Room. And, you know, here and there."

Not many books? "What kind of a library is this?"

Before he could answer, the staircase door opened and a woman walked in. "Hi, Blackstar," she said. "Maka, right? I'm Marie." She tucked a lock of slightly wavy blonde hair behind a little round ear.

"Welcome, welcome! It's great to have you here," she told me. "We've been very shorthanded—we lost two pages in the last two months—and Franken told Dr. Rust you're a hard worker."

"I love his class. It's worth working hard in," I said, flattered.

"I bet he's a great teacher. How is he doing? And the Beast?"

"Dr. Stein is fine. I've never, um, met the Beast."

"No? Well, that's something for you to look forward to." She beamed at me. "Did Blackstar give you the grand tour?"

"Not yet, I was running a call slip," said Blackstar.

"Okay," she said. "I'll show you around, then. Did you have any questions to begin with?"

"Yes," I said. "What is this place?"

"I'm not sure what you mean—which place? Stack 9? The Stack 9 staging area?"

"No, I mean the whole institution, the repository."

I didn't expect a real answer. Whatever this place was, it seemed to be full of people who told you to ask questions and then declined to answer them.

But took a breath and began. "The New-York Circulating Material Repository is the oldest subscription library of its kind in the country. We've existed in one form or another since 1745, when three clock makers began sharing some of their more specialized tools. That collection became the core of the repository in 1837, when a group of amateur astronomers pooled their resources and opened shop. Our first home was on St. John's Park, near Greenwich Street, but we moved uptown to East Twenty-fourth Street in 1852 and to our current location in1921. Of course, we've expanded into the adjoining buildings since then. In fact, most of the stacks are part of the 1958 expansion. Lee's office is in the original 1921 bequest, though."

Informative, but not very enlightening. "Are the subscribers the people who come here to borrow books or whatever?" I asked.

"Books?" She looked taken aback. "No, not really. There are plenty of other libraries for that. I hope you're not going to be disappointed, honey—if it's books you're after, I can put you in touch with Jill Kaufmann at the Lion Library. They can always use pages."

Was I imagining things, or was Blackstar smirking a little?

"No, it's just—Dr. Stein said there was a job at a library, so I just assumed, you know, I would be working with books. If it's not books, what is it?"

"What? Objects, of course. We're just like a circulating book library but with far more varied collections."

"What kind of collections? Collections of what?"

She took a breath and began again. It sounded as if she'd given this speech many times too. "Some of the more popular types of items we loan out these days include musical instruments, sports equipment, and specialized cooking tools. Many New Yorkers like to give the occasional fondue party, for example, but they don't want to devote the cupboard space to a lot of fondue pots. Or if you're thinking of learning to play the piccolo, you might borrow one to see how you like it. In the late nineteenth century, specialized silver services were very popular. In the 1970s, it was wood lathes. Lately there's been a run on—oh dear!" She broke off as a girl around my age appeared from between a pair of cabinets with a slip of paper in her hand. "There's another one, I bet."

"Excuse me, Ms. Marie. Dr. Rust is out and there's a patron who needs to borrow something from the Grimm Collection. Can you handle the deposit?" asked the girl.

"Of course. Thanks, Tsubaki." turned to me. "I'm sorry, hon, we'll have to finish up later. Here, I need you to fill out these forms. You can leave them with Tsubaki when you're done, and I'll see you—let's see, when's your first shift? Tuesday. I'm so glad to have you with us, honey—it'll be a big help. And I hope you'll come to love the repository as much as we do." She shook my hand vigorously and vanished between a pair of cabinets.

"She seems friendly," I said.

" ? She's a honey," said Tsubaki.

Blackstar grinned at her. I sat down at one of the heavy oak desks to fill out my forms. Tsubaki leaned against it. She was a bit taller than me, with black hair held up in a skinny pony tail, pale skin that was slightly tanned, and dark purple eyes under perfectly arched eyebrows. I had always wanted eyebrows like that. Mine are straight and kind of plain.

"I'm Maka Albarn," I said.

"Nice to meet you, Maka. I'm Tsubaki Nakatsukasa."

"Hey, can I ask a question?" I asked. Tsubaki and Blackstar intoned in unison, "The one who asks questions does not lose his way!" Then they smiled at each other.

"What's the Grimm Collection?"

The smiles vanished and they glanced at each other. "Don't worry about that for now," said Tsubaki.

"Oh. Okay," I said, feeling a little snubbed. There was an awkward silence. "So," I tried again, "what do they pay us around here?"

"Eighty-five percent of minimum wage," said Blackstar.

"How can they call it the minimum, then?" I objected.

"It doesn't seem fair, does it? We're students, so they're allowed to pay us less," said Tsubaki.

I thought about it. "I guess it could be worse."

"You could get more flipping burgers—but then you'd have to flip burgers," said Blackstar. "This place smells a lot better."

"Except Stack 8," said Tsubaki.

They both snorted. I wanted to ask what Stack 8 was, but I didn't want to risk being told to mind my own business again.

"So, Maka," said Tsubaki, "where did you put the memorial button?"

"The what?"

"The button with human hair."

"It's downstairs with Dr. Rust."

"No, I mean what category did you put it in?"

"With the things made of animal parts. Why, where did you put it?" I asked Tsubaki.

"Mid-nineteenth century. But now I think it should have gone in eighteenth. Doesn't matter, I still got the job. What about the barrette?"

"What barrette? There was no barrette, just buttons. Oh, and a zipper."

"A zipper! How interesting. I wonder what that means. What about you, Blackstar, did you get a zipper or a barrette? Do you remember?"

"I got a belt buckle and an electric switch," said Blackstar. "And the memorial button."

"Really? That's two extras besides the button box. I only got one."

"Yeah, I don't think Doc was too happy when I put the belt buckle in with the nails. I think the electric switch was like giving me a second chance to prove myself."

"What nails?" I said.

"Oh, you didn't get any nails?" said Tsubaki. "I did. They were in the button box."

A pneum thumped into the basket. She went to get it.

"Are you on 9 with us now?" Blackstar asked her. "I thought you were down in the Dungeon today."

"I am, but it's okay, I'm on break. I have another ten minutes." She handed Blackstar the slip. "Do you think Doc ever flunks anybody for sorting the buttons wrong?"

"Wrong how?" asked Blackstar.

"I don't know, maybe if you did something really obvious, like lining them up by size."

Blackstar looked a little embarrassed; I wondered whether he'd lined the buttons up by size. I knew how he felt—I'd done it myself. Well, I'd used size and color together, but close enough.

He studied the slip and headed off down the room.

"So you go to the D.W.M.A. with Blackstar?" asked Tsubaki.

"Yes, where do you go?"

"Miss Wharton's School," she said. It was a fancy all-girls' private school near D.W.M.A. When I went to Chase, we used to be in the same sports league for the girls' teams. I wondered whether she would be stuck up—Miss Wharton's had that reputation. But she seemed nice enough so far. I finished the forms and handed them to her. "That's it, I guess. How do I get out of here? This building's a little confusing, and I don't have a great sense of direction," I said.

"Just take the elevator to the lobby."

I looked at the three little elevators doubtfully. "What elevator?" I asked. Tsubaki laughed. "Oh, did Blackstar make you climb up all those stairs? He's such a he-man! I didn't mean the dumbwaiters—I meant the real, live, person-size elevator. Come on, I'll show you."

I put on my coat and followed her through a fire door. "I'm glad you're here. It's about time they finally hired somebody," she said.

That made two people today who'd told me they were glad to have me around—the first two in years. I had a feeling I was going to like this place.

"It's been extra busy since Mona disappeared, and sort of spooky," Tsubkai whispered.

"Someone disappeared?" I asked.

"Mona Chen, one of the pages."

"Where'd she go?"

"I don't know. Ms. Marie thinks she went back to Taiwan with her family, but she never said good-bye, and that's not like her. Blackstar and I are trying to find out what happened to her. We think it may have something to do with . . ." She stopped.

"With what?"

"I'm sorry. Never mind. You're going to think I'm crazy. And I don't want to scare you away before you've even started! But I did think I should warn you."

"Warn me about what? Scare me how?" There was something almost gothic about this place, with the mysterious collection Tsubaki and Blackstar wouldn't tell me about and now a disappearing page. I was less scared than intrigued.

Tsubaki paused. "Well, there are some wild rumors about a—about a flying creature that's been following some of the patrons and pages around. They even say it snatched a repository object right out of a patron's hands."

"A flying creature? What do you mean?" This did sound crazy. Was Tsubaki fooling with me? She looked serious.

"I've heard it's like a giant bird," Tsubaki said. "At least that's what they say. I don't know if it's true. But then Mona disappeared, and she was really scared about the bird and so I thought . . ."

"Wait," I said. "Have you seen this bird yourself?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so. But sometimes I get the feeling something's watching me."

"That sounds pretty scary," I said, not knowing how seriously to take her.

"Yeah, well . . ." She punched the elevator call button. "I don't mean to freak you out. Just, watch out for . . ." Tsubaki looked at me and smiled.

"For enormous birds that steal objects and kidnap pages," I finished.

"Yeah, I know it sounds nuts. But after you work at this place for a while, you'll start to get used to some pretty unlikely stuff."

The elevator arrived and I got in. "See you Tuesday!"

"See you Tuesday, have a good weekend!"

Tsubaki waved as the doors closed. New friend or weirdo? I wondered. She seemed nice, anyway. It wouldn't be so bad, I decided, if she turned out to be both.

_**End Chapter 2**_

* * *

_****_**Shen: **Well, there's chapter two... dammit, I just had dinner and now I'm hungry.

**Maka: **Did we really need to know that?

**Shen:** In my case, yes.

**Maka: ***_Face __palms_*

**Andreina: ***_Still listening to music_*

**Tsubaki+Yugi: **Please RxR! Ja ne!


End file.
